November = Soup Season

CSA Pick-Up November 3

The cold wind is blowing hard outside, and tonight’s temperature is due to dip down into the low 20s–yikes!  Edge has been checking the field and recovering the crops when their covers blow off, despite the sandbags holding them down.  They are all tucked in as well as they can be now, and we are hoping to find them all in place come morning.  After the cold wind tonight, we’re looking forward to a bright and sunny harvest day tomorrow.

With the cold weather setting in, soup season has begun!  We’ve been making chicken soup, squash soup, squash soup with chicken broth (makes it really silky!), and classic veggie soup with lots of roots, too.  We’ve both been making soups for years, and though we began our soup-making adventures with recipes, we rarely follow them now.  The recipe we have here is more of a guideline, so have fun and put your own twist on it.

To make your soups, we have a “magic soup starter” for you this week.  It’s a veggie-salt preserve, perfect for making a quick batch of veggie-stock.  If you are sick of soup already, we have homemade sauerkraut for you!  And if you can’t decide between the two, don’t worry–you’ll have another chance at each in the coming weeks.

An update on the eggs:  our chickens are slowing down, likely due to the cold weather and waning light, so the eggs aren’t as plentiful this week.  We’re hopeful they’ll pick back up once we move them into their winter home–a small hoop house with more light–and they adjust to the new weather.

This week on the menu: choice of cabbage or mini-cauliflower/broccoli, salad mix, shallots, winter squash, carrots, garlic, choice of sauerkraut or magic soup starter

Veggie Soup with Magic Soup Starter

The magic soup starter comes from Edge’s winters on an Alaskan farm, where they called this the “magic stuff.”  It’s a veggie-salt preserve perfect for starting soups when you don’t have vegetable stock on hand.

Ingredients
–magic soup starter, 1 heaping TBS per quart of water
-shallots, diced
-garlic, diced
-carrots, sliced in 1/2″ rounds
-squash, cut to 1″ cubes
-potatoes, cut to 1″ cubes

To prepare:
-in a medium pot, saute shallots and garlic for about 5 minutes, add potatoes, carrots, and squash, and cook another 5 minutes
-add magic soup starter, saute another few minutes
-add hot water to pot, bring to a simmer and cook until veggies are tender